That's interesting to hear. I've been training in striking arts for over 30 years also, and if I had to start all over again I'd take up Judo, because I'd consider that to be the most generally effective MA. I guess its just a matter of perspective.

The problem with Judo is that there is essentially no training in striking. The overall conditioning, physical toughness, training to fall safely, balance, movement, etc. is excellent, although a lot will depend on how the student trains, how much they compete, and stuff like that.

For example, my primary judo instructor was a black belt in Shorin-Ryu karate also. They trained, sparred, and competed full contact. He also had a lot of "street" fighting experience (yeah, I know...but he in reality did). So I got a different perspective on using judo for self defense/fighting. He combined it with his karate training, would train "judo against karate" with his karate sensei, and stuff like that.

I personally experienced the difference between striking and grappling for self defense/fighting when I was in grad school. I was running the club sports judo program at the university. The "martial arts club" did some type of Okinawan karate plus Taekwondo and Kali/Arnis. I know, TKD, BUT, we sparred full contact (and also whatever the ATA or WTF rules were at the time as well).

I've posted this before, so I repeat myself. At first in sparring (striking), I got hit a LOT all over. I was probably better than average, as I had a very combative attitude from serious judo training (I was already a black belt in Judo at the time, and was promoted to 2nd degree black belt while I was doing that training). It took several weeks to get the timing down for blocking/evading/parrying/slipping punches and kicks. And I wasn't working with boxers, either...

Once I did get some decent defensive skills down, I found I COULD use my judo effectively, although I never actually threw anybody on the hardwood floor, LOL. I sure wanted to, though !

The instructors would yell at me "No throwing, Ben, no throwing", while laughing and watching me spar. They could see me angling to get close, or using strikes to close distance, etc.

But doing Judo is no guarantee of having a similar experience...it's gonna depend on attitude, skill level, etc etc.

Training through/past exhaustion is more of a specialized situation to me. It does deal with adrenaline, but, the adrenaline hits you differently when you are exhausted to the point of collapse. In a non-exhausted scenario, the adrenaline is a lot more overwhelming. When exhausted, the adrenaline actually usually feels pretty damned good, especially if you have trained to deal with it when not exhausted.

Most people have never even been yelled at much, or been physically threatened by another person (or animal). A few years ago, I watched some video on what you could probably call RBSD. The trainers made the point that being able to deal with the adrenaline was more important than the physical techniques. The first part of their training was to basically verbally abuse (severely!) the students and threaten them with physical harm. That sort of thing went on in conjunction with the physical side of the training.

Good point, the adrenaline would hit different when one is not exhausted.

One of the reasons why I do not dismiss the Krav or similar systems entirely is because there are people out there who, similar to those raw military recruits for which these systems were originally intended, really need to start out with training on how to deal with aggression even before they start learning technique. Doesnt do much good to train how to throw a punch if you freeze when the time comes. At least some of the people I saw in the KM class I attended definitely fit into that category.

I'd like to see a MA system that trains gun defenses with simunitions, or at least with a water pistol, similar to the way that some people train knife defense with chalk or Sharpies. It bothers me that these people are treating a gun disarm without adding in any simulation of weapon discharge. I bvet they'd be surprised to see how many times they're getting shot.

Yeah, that would be interesting. Add in the attacker not just letting go of the weapon, and or having even rudimentary weapons retention skill, and it would up the stress level as well.

And they could use cut out trigger guards to negate the "too deadly" stuff to a large degree.

Good point, the adrenaline would hit different when one is not exhausted.

One of the reasons why I do not dismiss the Krav or similar systems entirely is because there are people out there who, similar to those raw military recruits for which these systems were originally intended, really need to start out with training on how to deal with aggression even before they start learning technique. Doesnt do much good to train how to throw a punch if you freeze when the time comes. At least some of the people I saw in the KM class I attended definitely fit into that category.

People freeze in fucking judo tournaments, let alone when someone is ready, willing, and able to do them serious physical harm or worse.

I went through TASER training last weekend, and we did a couple of "under stress" drills...with a guy coming at us with an arcing TASER with the promise that we would get "tapped" if he got to us before we had reloaded and re-engaged. I was able to control my understand and control my adrenal response because of my judo training and competition experience.

But again, I had an instructor who understood the adrenal response, and trained me to be able to function with it, and I continued that after we parted ways.

Hard to do that in your typical civilian TMA school tho, isn't it? What do you do with your students, outside of a live competitive setting?

Contact sparring of some sort. In judo, we do randori. That's a good start, and it freaks a good number of people out. In striking arts, getting punched kicked in the face or body I imagine, with different levels of contact and pads.

Most people never get struck in their entire lives, and if they do, it's pretty traumatic. Start off with pads and big gloves...in judo the equivalent is nage komi (throwing practice) at different intensities and levels of movement and resistance. Mock tournaments, stuff like that (I use those to prep newbs for tournaments).

It's up to the "civilian TMA schools" to come up with whatever fits with their syllabus, I would say. But first they have to realize they need to do it.

In my case, I had a lot of one on one training with my instructor. We did things that most other students would have balked at. My Dad came by one evening (this was back in the late mid 80s) and watched us train. He took leave and came back after class to take us to dinner (myself and my instructor). The next day, Dad told me he could never do or take what I had been doing. He was kind of shaking just thinking about it. Whether it was the physical force being used, or just allowing someone to have that much control I don't know.

And we were just throwing each other full force while doing full-on competition style movement and gripping (and attitude). We both would throw each other 5 times in a row, then switch, so I wasn't getting the crap beat out of me...I was 5'6" and 145 lbs, coach was 6'4" and 210 lbs, maybe that had something to do with it...

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Overall, some sort of performance pressure has to be brought to bear on the trainee. Some people are self motivated, others, no so much. There are some who simply cannot take physical/psychological pressure combined. They won't be around long for serious training (martial arts anyway). Others train for fun/social activity/fitness and don't WANT much if any pressure beyond maybe promotion testing (that can serve to some degree, though).

In striking arts, getting punched kicked in the face or body I imagine, with different levels of contact and pads.

In my traditional Shorinryu school we do body conditioning exercises like kicking each other in the legs, the ribs, banging forearms together, etc. This helps, but its not the same as sparring, which in my school is currently limited to prearranged bunkai and kumite. Ironically, reading about old Okinawan masters, I got the impression that these guys didn't shy away from a fight. Somehow, this got left out of "modern traditional training."

This is one of the reasons I tried to experiment with KM, thinking that KM would up the intensity a bit, but that didn't work for me. I'm currently looking at a Tang Soo Do school. Its not full contact, but at least its sparring and its harder contact than just point sparring. I'm a bit over the hill for regular full contact practice anyway. The downside is that I can forget about getting any more grappling practice, and I may get stuck having to learn the upteenth variation of the same Pinan/Heian katas that I've been practicing for years. But I'll take what I can get.

For a straight up, man to man, hand to hand brawl, MMA is very, very hard to beat. Any Krav Maga instructor with his head separated from his ass will tell you that. That's why the sparring in Krav Maga often is similar to MMA.

There are several things that separate self defense from an MMA fight though and therefore you practice on many things in Krav Maga, which there is no reason to train in MMA. Illegal techniques and dirty tricks is of course one of them, but also things like how to react during a surprise attack, evasion tactics, how to best defend a third party, simple weapons training and defense etc.

The thing about Krav Maga is also that the system is made up in a relatively simple way making it easy to learn in a short amount of time and thereby a good complement to your MMA training. I'm sorry to hear that KM is so damn expensive in the US, but even just going to a couple of KM workshops to get some new ideas is something I can recommend, if you don't feel you can afford to train both arts at the same time. Instruction videos is of course a good way to go from there.

No, I'm not going to let you get away with lumping Krav Maga in with TMA. Most TMAs are much better for teaching people to defend themselves than Krav. At least your neighborhood karate school will teach you how to throw a punch. Krav, on the other hand is about feeling badass while avoiding learning any proper fighting fundamentals.

I took up Krav mid last year after a huge haitus. I'd previously tried TMA and written them off as being kata obsessed and useless in a real fight. I got sick of air punching in time with the Big Man and moved onto Kendo - which is as real as it gets (being hit with a stick hurts!) but is rubbish for self defence.

Krav wont make you a bad ass. Nothing you can learn in any gym or dojo will. But to say that you dont learn technique is just incorrect.

We learn striking and in fact concentrate on it. I can punch a hell of a lot harder today than I could 6 months ago, same for kicking, elbows and knees. The striking is different from the stuff I learned as a kid in TMA - it's all about very short bursts of explosive blows - enough to give you a break from a fight to run away. We have regular half day striking seminars and the instructor noticed we'd started to become sloppy a couple of weeks ago and put us through a couple of weeks of remedial striking school.

In our gym we're all pretty clear - a trained MMA fighter would kill us in a ring, even fighting no rules. Would he necessarily be better trained to respond in a bar to multiple attackers? I'd argue probably not. Some of the guys I train with have a law enforcement background, either police or correctional officers. They wanted something which would work quickly, be effective and was relatively technique light.

I actually think you're missing the point a bit though. I never ever want to get in an MMA ring - not ever not the once. I'd get my ass kicked - those guys have rules and critically know that they are at the end of the day fighting in a safe environment. However as an ordinary guy I've practised stuff which would let me hurt someone a lot and get away from a fight. That's a good thing.

You need to look at the roots of KM - it was a Jew in pre-war Europe who got sick seeing his mates getting beaten up by Nazis. So he came up with a systems that anyone can learn quickly which would leave them better off than if they hadn't trained if they were attacked. In those terms it has to be seen as a success.

This brings me to another thing that rubs me the wrong way about Krav, which you touched on a bit. The goddamn paramilitary wannabe bullshit. It never fails. When you see Krav you're almost always going to see a room full of 20 something yuppies who never had the balls and/or inclination to be in the actual military. Yet, all of a sudden they decide they're going to be these deadly tactical war gods. Fucking bunch of pansy ass posers. They're going to sit there feeling like badasses while they're learning from some other yuppie in fatigues who learned everything there is to know about death from a Krav school in a strip mall.

Peckerheads.

I do Krav - I'd walk out of a school that was full of those sort of people too.

But it's a bit of a stereotype isn't it? It's like thinking all Karate Schools were like the Cobra Kai in the Karate Kid.